Accel World - Volume 19 - Chapter 1

1

There was only one way to become a Burst Linker, a player of the fighting game Brain Burst 2039: get a current Burst Linker to copy and install the BB program.

To do this, the would-be Burst Linker needed a wired connection with the current Burst Linker’s Neurolinker. If the installation succeeded, giver and receiver would be bound by the transitory and yet most powerful bond in the Accelerated World: that of “parent” and “child.”

Haruyuki’s parent was Black Lotus, the Black King, aka Kuroyukihime. Utai Shinomiya’s parent was Mirror Masker, aka her real-life older brother, Kyoya Shinomiya. Rin Kusakabe’s parent was Akira, aka Fuko Kurasaki. And Fuko’s parent was…

Now that I’m thinking about it, I’ve never heard Master Raker talk about her parent, Haruyuki thought as he glanced over at her, but he hurriedly pulled his mind back from that potential tangent to focus on the current situation.

Thursday, July 18, 2047. 5:00 PM.

Together with Fuko, Haruyuki had dived into the Unlimited Neutral Field from the Arita living room, charged the Castle with the borrowed power of the Archangel Metatron, and entered the fortress for the first time in about a month and a half of real-world time. There, he’d been reunited with his friend Trilead Tetroxide and one other person: the Anomaly Graphite Edge, first seat of the Six Armors, the Green Legion, Great Wall, executive.

Trilead introduced Graph to Haruyuki and Fuko as his swordmaster and Brain Burst parent. In other words, Graph was the one who had given the mysterious young warrior Trilead the program. And to carry out the required copy/install, they had to have had a direct connection between their Neurolinkers in the real world.

“…Trilead…And Graph…,” Haruyuki said to the pair lined up before him, still in shock. “You’re…You know each other in the real?”

Trilead looked up at Graph with a slight frown, and Graph shrugged lightly.

“Mm, we’ll explain that a bit later, Crow,” he said. “Rekka’s looks like she’s got some questions for us, first.”

“Huh?” As Haruyuki shifted his gaze back to Sky Raker, his avatar reflexively stiffened up.

Her madder-red eye lenses shone with a particular light, quiet but hiding an unfathomable force, and that was all he needed to see to understand that the “actually scary Master Raker” was one step away from intense rage.

“Graphite Edge.”

She called him by his full avatar name, and Graph shuffled backward ever so slightly.

“Wh-what’s up, Rekka?”

“The fact that you are here in this place…I take it to mean that you long ago escaped from the Unlimited EK the God Genbu had you in at the north gate of the Castle?”

“W-well, strictly speaking, I guess so?”

“And when, exactly, did this happen?”

“A-actually, pretty soon after the Castle attack three years ago…”

“So then…why did you not tell us sooner?!” she shouted, pale-blue flames of a powerful aura jetting up around her slender avatar.

Haruyuki once again flinched into himself. Even Metatron’s icon, which had apparently been observing their surroundings from her spot on his right shoulder, froze in place.

“Do you have any idea how much it has pained Maiden that you were trapped in an Unlimited EK?! In order to save you, that child has gone so far as to train in an Incarnate technique of the fourth quadrant—large-scale destruction!! Her! With her kind heart; kinder than anyone else’s!!”

This was true. During their previous Castle escape mission, Ardor Maiden—Utai Shinomiya—had activated a fearsome Incarnate technique that changed the ground to magma in order to dispatch large soldier Enemies. He was pretty sure she said at the time that she developed the technique for the God Genbu.

The more the practitioner used fourth quadrant—negative Incarnate techniques—the more they were pulled into the hole in their heart. Specifically, they felt more and more negative emotions toward themselves and other people, leading to a warping of their personality. All that awaited any player captured by the darkness in the depths of that hole was a dark carnage, the simple and singular search for enemies and constant battle until the player was utterly destroyed. Just like had happened to Chrome Falcon, after becoming the first Chrome Disaster.

Which reminds me. It was here in the Castle where Falcon’s Enhanced Armament, The Destiny, was found…

His thoughts now started to wander into the past, but his mind was yanked back by Graph’s voice and the ever-so-slightly serious edge it now held.

“She was…Denden…Ah, crap, I didn’t mean to…” Scratching his helmet with one hand, the dual swordmaster raised the other and continued, half in apology, half in excuse, “It’s true, it’s on me for not telling Lota and the rest of you that I escaped from Genbu’s Unlimited EK. But, y’know, how was I supposed to let you know? I don’t have your e-mail addresses or anything. And just showing up all of a sudden to pick a fight in a duel’s a whole thing…”

“You didn’t have to come meet face-to-face. There are all kinds of ways to send a message!” Fuko thundered, and Haruyuki flinched along with Graph. “Great Wall often attacks Suginami in the Territories, so you could have had that team give us a message. Or you could have simply failed in some spectacular manner in the Unlimited Neutral Field like you used to do in the old days. If we heard you’d shown up and blundered in some ridiculous way, we’d at least know you escaped from the Unlimited EK.”

“Y-you’re totally right. But the second one o’ those is kinda impossible.”

“And why’s that?” Fuko pressed.

“I did make it out of the Unlimited EK,” Graph replied, not hesitant in the least. “But not outside the Castle. I escaped to the inside.”

“…The inside?”

“Yep. I know I’m pretty amazing, but there’s no way I could dodge Genbu’s attacks and make it across the bridge on my own. But my appearance point was right next to the north gate, so I figured I might have a chance that way. Like, ‘why not give it a try?’ And that means when I’m in the Unlimited Neutral Field, I’m here inside the Castle.”

“B-but that doesn’t make any sense!” Haruyuki cried out heedlessly.

The swordsman’s face mask was abruptly whirled around toward him. He definitely wasn’t threatening Haruyuki, but the instant the sharp lines of his goggles were turned his way, Haruyuki felt an impact from the completely natural posture—something unfathomable—and his breath stopped.

“Um.” Slowly exhaling the virtual air trapped in his lungs, Haruyuki first checked one thing. “Graph, three years ago…You came into the Castle after the first Nega Nebulus mission to attack it, which is where you met Trilead and made him your child, right?”

Dual swordmaster and apprentice nodded firmly at the same time, so he continued.

“To get into the Castle through one of the four gates without defeating the Four Gods, the seal plate on the inside of the gate has to be destroyed in advance. Like Trilead did for us. But when you charged the gate, Graph, Trilead wasn’t a Burst Linker yet, so there was no one inside who could destroy the plate— No, I guess you could make Trilead your child first and then get him to cut the seal? But then, how did you get inside, Trilead…?” The whole thing gradually made less and less sense to him, and he trailed off as he looked back and forth at the two of them.

Again, Trilead said nothing, but rather glanced at his teacher with a faint hint of a smile. Graph, on the other hand, groaned before turning his face to the massive building rising up behind them.

“How about we go somewhere we can relax at least? The patrol Enemies’ll be regenerating pretty soon.”

“I agree.” This immediate response came not from Fuko or Haruyuki, but Metatron’s icon on Haruyuki’s shoulder. “This palace—you little warriors call it the Castle, yes? I wish to see the interior right away. Postpone the information exchange and move there immediately.”

“You’re somehow even more domineering now, hmm?” Fuko murmured, shaking her head in exasperation, her anger finally subsiding.

When Haruyuki and Utai had broken into the Castle a month ago, the field attribute had been a Heian stage, and a Demon City stage when they’d escaped. Now, on his third visit to this courtyard, it was a Moonlight stage, but only the object design had been transformed; the terrain itself was unchanged. The wide, straight road from the plaza in front of the Castle’s south gate stretched out to the north, and up ahead, the main building sat ponderous, now a massive temple.

The last time, fearsome Enemies had been patrolling the corridors when he’d headed for the main building with Utai, so they’d had to use the lines of pillars to either side and carefully jump from the protective cover of one to the next, which ate up a lot of his mental energy. But now, Graph and Trilead had dispatched those guard Enemies, so they could walk tall down the center of the road that was likely patterned after the Suzaku Avenue of the ancient capital.

And while this was utterly ideal, and he was quite grateful for it, it also made the questions in his mind multiply. He looked at Graph and Lead walking slightly ahead of him and wondered how on earth they had known that Haruyuki and Fuko would try breaking into the Castle that particular day at that particular time. He’d only told Fuko what he was planning, and then only fifteen or so minutes before the start of the mission. He was sure she hadn’t had time to contact anyone else either, and she had no reason to. Given her earlier anger, it was obvious that she hadn’t expected to see Graph here again.

So then, had they anticipated Haruyuki’s move and been waiting for him? He was aware that he was pretty easy to read, so he couldn’t say it was entirely unexpected that someone would guess what he was up to. But even so, it wasn’t realistic to wait for someone in the Unlimited Neutral Field. Time here flowed a thousand times faster. No matter how patient the Burst Linker, six months was basically as long as anyone could keep waiting for someone who might not even show up. Even the Green King, Green Grandé, and the third seat of the Six Armors, Iron Pound, were going to give up their stakeout at three months when they tried to wait for the Change to effect a Hell stage so they would have a chance of defeating the Metatron who’d been guarding Tokyo Midtown Tower.

Well, G by himself could probably hold out for a whole year, though…

As this thought passed through his mind, he shook his head vigorously. Haruyuki would never be able to sit tight for a whole year. He had no doubt that the master and student before him were equipped with far more patience than he was, but he still found it hard to believe they would wait blindly and possibly in vain. Most likely, they had guessed at Haruyuki and Fuko’s plan through some means or another—and with a fair bit of precision…

“This is such a lovely place.”

A voice came suddenly from his left, and Haruyuki shifted his gaze.

Having dismissed the Gale Thruster, Fuko was once again wearing her white hat and dress, and she looked at their surroundings, seemingly moved. He heard a faint murmur come from her face mask with its molding surprisingly similar to her real-world face.

“This mission is for Sacchi, but still, it’s honestly a shame that she’s not here. She’s the one more than anyone in this world…who wants to know the truth of the Accelerated World…”

“Yeah.” Haruyuki nodded, reflecting upon that same thought. Silver Crow and Sky Raker, with their flight abilities, had only barely made it through the area guarded by the God Suzaku and had used up every bit of power and energy they had to do it—they’d definitely had no margin for bringing a third person. Still, if they could have brought Kuroyukihime, she would no doubt have been utterly delighted. He remembered how her eyes had shone as she listened to him and Utai alternately explain the situation inside the Castle and hung his head.

“I do not understand.” A crisp voice came from his right shoulder. “Why are you little ones held prisoner by thoughts of what you cannot do, allowing your thoughts to stagnate? It is quite unproductive. If you have the time for that, think about what you can do going forward and activate your mental circuits. Unfortunately, there are no words to express this situation precisely in my word library.”

The Archangel Metatron spoke 1.2 times faster than normal, and he flashed a secret smile that was overwritten by a feeling of admiration. She was right—and while he didn’t necessarily agree that reviewing the past was pointless, right now, it was more important that they turn their eyes to the future.

“We call this status ‘excitement,’” he said, turning his face to his shoulder.

The 3-D icon blinked irregularly for a moment. “I shall remember that. Now then, I order you anew. Crow. And Raker. You must be at full excitement in this situation.”

“I never dreamed the day would come when an Enemy told me to be excited,” Fuko murmured.

“You will say Being,” came the quick rejoinder. But Metatron quickly rattled on, “Currently, we are in Area Zero Zero, the place where Brain Burst 2039 begins and ends. Even a single terrain object is utterly fascinating! Have you realized this? With the current field attribution HL05—what you little warriors call the Moonlight stage, the object endurance should be less than average, and yet, everything here is set at the maximum value. And all main architectural object structures have the attribute ‘indestructible’…My own Trisagion most likely would not be able to cause their destruction.”

“…You really are excited, sounding so happy about things you can’t do,” Haruyuki noted.

“I feel as though that utterance was relatively insolent, but I shall allow it. Now, look behind us. It appears the guard Beings are regenerating.”

“You keep telling me to look at things; I can’t keep up here…” He turned, sending sparks scattering on the paving stones, and immediately shouted, “Wheah?!”

In the plaza in front of the south gate, a mere fifty meters away, he could see a large-scale cascade effect.

“Hmm, that’s quite the information density. As with the guard Beings in use at the headquarters of the Acceleration Research Society, it will be difficult to repel it with my order.”

“That’s too bad—Now’s not the time for that kind of talk!” Whirling around once again, he called out to Graphite Edge ahead. “Uh! Um! Graph! It looks like the Beings—I mean, Enemies—are generating!”

The swordsman glanced over his shoulder at the eerie gushing effect before answering lackadaisically, “It’s fine; we’re fine. They’re not gonna aggro when we’re this far away.”

“B-but it’s not like Enemies just stay in one fixed place, though, right…?”

“It’s fine; we’re fine. Those guys are slow.”

“B-but it’s not going to be just that one, though, right…?”

“It’s fine; we’re fine— Oh! We’re not fine.”

At Graph’s latest reaction, Haruyuki timidly looked back to find a second cascade had started a scant ten meters away. A distance at which they would certainly be attacked if discovered.

“S-seeeeee?!”

“Welp! Everybody run!”

The swordmaster took off toward the main building so fast that he left a gray afterimage hanging in the air.

“Heeeeeeeey!”

So irresponsible! Haruyuki cursed as he hurried to chase after him.

“I’m sorry, Crow.” Lead, running next to him, bowed his head apologetically. “My master is always like that.”

“N-no, you don’t have to apologize, Lead…”

“When a person’s with that boy,” Fuko said darkly from behind, “everything is like this, so you’d best get used to it sooner rather than later, Corvus.”

After a minute or two of dashing, Haruyuki made it to the plaza in front of the main building in one piece and let out a long breath.

Graphite Edge was already there, hand up to shield his eyes, staring in the direction of the south gate. “Aah, they’re just re-popping like bunnies out there. Gonna have to clear them away again…Hey, Crow, Rekka, you have to help when you leave.”

“What…?” Haruyuki stiffened in place. Defeat that entire Enemy squad?!

“If you did it once, you can do it again, Graph,” Fuko responded.

“Aah, that hurts.” Graphite Edge winced. “You got any idea how hard Lead and I worked to clear them away for you?”

“Yes, yes. And you’ll have our thanks for that. In our deepest heart of hearts,” she finished, effectively silencing Graph.

It was Lead who spoke next, instead. “The Enemies guarding the main entrance of the main building will be recovered soon. Let’s go inside before they are.”

Haruyuki’s memories of his previous visit came back to him now. The design of the main building was significantly different here in the Moonlight stage than it had been in the Heian stage before, but the basic structure and Enemy placement would have been the same. And the last time, the two terrifying Enemies had stood on either side of the main entrance, blocking the way, clearly on a different scale from the other guards.

“D-did you actually defeat those two monsters?!” Haruyuki asked, stunned.

“Yes.” Lead nodded bashfully. “Although I was merely assisting my master.”

“No…Just the fact that you fought them is plenty amazing.” Haruyuki looked once more at the young blue warrior before him. He felt like he had grown a little at least over the last month, and it seemed like Lead was also not the same person Haruyuki had first met.

I want to hurry up and get somewhere safe so we can talk more. Suppressing his impatience, Haruyuki climbed the large stairs with the rest of the group.

The main entrance was a set of imposing, metal double doors, apparently in the Western design of the Moonlight stage. In terms of size, at least, they didn’t compare with the massive doors of the four gates, but they were as splendid as he’d expect from a building that sat in the center of this world, the pale moonlight reflecting off the complicated geometrical designs on the surface.

“Now, Crow. Here we have the fifth of the ninefold gate, the central door. Please go ahead and open it.” Lead urged him forward with a wave of his hand.

“Huh?” Haruyuki reeled, captivated by the silver doors. “I-I’m going to open it?!”

“That is why you came, isn’t it?”

“B-but it’s not like I defeated the guard,” he mumbled, his experience a month ago fresh in his mind. He had slipped into the Castle main building with Utai, using the window Chrome Falcon opened long, long ago to get inside, so he had never even approached the main entrance before. Wondering if he was really qualified to open the doors, he looked up at the magnificent entryway.

“Aah, enough! I grow impatient!” It was, of course, the Archangel Metatron shouting. The small, three-dimensional icon moved from Haruyuki’s shoulder to above his head and slapped at his helmet with her wings. “This is an order, servant. Open those doors immediately! Come on, hurry it up!”

“G-got it.” He quickly placed a hand on each door, and without taking a moment to savor the occasion, he pushed with all his might on the metal panels, feeling their heavy density.

Fortunately, he was not confronted with the humiliating tragedy of pushing on a door only to find he was supposed to pull; no, this time, the large doors began to open outward, the ground rumbling sonorously. Cool air flowed out from the darkness inside, and he suddenly felt all eight thousand years of the Accelerated World keenly.

Once the double doors were all the way open, several pale flames sprang up ahead of him to clear away the darkness and reveal a vast entrance hall. On the far side were broad stairs leading upward, and a number of doors were set in the walls to either side. There was no sign of Enemies inside, but the aura of the guards at the top of the stairs or lying in wait behind the doors mixed with the cold air and rolled out over his feet.

However, only Haruyuki was so nervous he couldn’t speak; his comrades casually crossed the threshold and proceeded inside. And then Metatron started whapping him on the head again, so he hurried after them.

“Okay then.” Graphite Edge stopped and looked around, after he’d led them forward for a minute or so. “Where’s safe ground in the Moonlight stage again?”

“Oh, it’s not this hall?” Fuko asked. “There don’t appear to be any Enemies.”

The double sword user shrugged. “Unfortunately, every five minutes, a patrolling Enemy comes in through some door. We can’t really relax and talk here.”

“So then you should have defeated all the Enemies inside,” she replied.

“Whoa, whoa. Don’t get carried away,” he protested with a cheeky grin. “We didn’t have time for that. We had to really hustle to get them cleared away outside.”

Fuko narrowed her eye lenses, and Haruyuki knew why. So Graph and Lead had known when Haruyuki and Fuko appeared in the Unlimited Neutral Field and had made preparations to welcome them…

The swordmaster squirmed under Fuko’s hard gaze until he was rescued by Lead.

“Master, I’m pretty sure the safe area was the small room at the top of the stairs.”

“Ohhh, right, right, right.” Graph fumbled cheerfully as he began to move again.

It appeared that the student had a firmer mental map of the interior of the main building than the master.

Now that he was thinking about it, Haruyuki hadn’t seen Graph here at all the last time. Of course, it wasn’t like he was diving 24-7, but the same could be said for his student Trilead, despite the fact that today wasn’t the first time Trilead had appeared with exquisite timing. The last time Haruyuki was here, Trilead had suddenly been there when Haruyuki and Utai first met him in the Arc hall somewhere in the depths of this building. How on earth were they sensing people coming into the Unlimited Neutral Field? Haruyuki was caught up in the mystery as he cut across the entrance hall after the three other Burst Linkers.

Once they had climbed the large staircase, they came to a long hallway stretching out straight ahead, once again with any number of doors in both walls. Even if they wanted to open every door and check inside, it would take far too long, but Trilead walked over to the second door on the left without hesitation and quietly pulled it open.

Assuming an Enemy would leap out roaring, Haruyuki flinched reflexively. But in the end, there was none of that—the young samurai simply urged them to step through the door and into a long, narrow hallway that led to a square room about six meters on each side. Lead had said it was a small room, but in real-world measurements, it was about thirty square meters. Made entirely of stone, the room was windowless, but the lamps hanging on all four walls gave off more than enough light. There was a wooden table in the center, and as if the room had been made to order, four chairs sat around it.

“No tea to offer, but, well, have a seat anyway,” Graphite Edge said. He set himself down first, and Lead took the seat next to him.

Haruyuki exchanged a look with Fuko before sitting down across from the other Burst Linkers. Instantly, he felt the tension that had kept his nerves taut since the moment they started out for the Suzaku gate spill out of him, and he let out an unconscious sigh. Metatron also floated down from his head back to his shoulder.

But he couldn’t relax yet. There were still so many things that he had to do—that he had to learn. Sitting up straight, he first opened his Instruct menu and checked their accumulated dive time. The display read fifty-five minutes. Haruyuki and Fuko had set the safety so that it would automatically disconnect after one hour, fifty-six minutes and forty seconds of inside time, so they had about an hour left. If they couldn’t achieve their goal before then, they would have to return to the real world and immediately reaccelerate.

“We don’t have a lot of time, so please speak quickly, Graph,” Fuko began immediately as she closed the Instruct menu she’d opened at the same time as Haruyuki. “First, how did you unlock the Genbu gate seal and enter the Castle? Start there.”

“Hmm. Hmmmm…” Arms crossed, Graphite Edge groaned for a bit before nodding as though he’d made up his mind about something. “Well, I did leave Denden and the rest of you hanging, so I’ll tell you everything I can. But I’m still a member of GW, so I can’t exactly go spilling that stuff. You gotta understand that.”

“…Fine,” Fuko assented briefly.

When the curtain fell the other day on the mock Territories against Great Wall in Shibuya No. 2, Nega Nebulus had won. As a result, the Green King himself had promised to return Shibuya Areas Nos. 1 and 2, but he had not extended this promise to include Graphite Edge’s return to Nega Nebulus’s Four Elements. This was because, in joining the ranks of Great Wall back in the day, Graphite Edge had taken the role of stanching the blood and bearing the brunt of the dissatisfaction likely to erupt among the Legion members over the abrupt loss of their territory. It was unclear exactly how he would pacify them, but at the very least, he apparently had no intention of betraying his position and responsibilities as first seat of the Six Armors.

He moved his hand from his chest up to his right shoulder and grabbed hold of the hilt stretching out there.

Chank! The instant the sword was unsheathed, Haruyuki hovered up above his seat slightly. But Fuko simply watched calmly, so he hurried to reseat himself.

Graph stretched out the hand with the sword before him and set his weapon down on the table gently. “This guy’s one part of my initial and final equipment, Lux.”

Haruyuki stared wordlessly at Graphite Edge’s legendary Enhanced Armament up close for the first time. He had seen more than a few sword-type Enhanced Armaments up to that point, but the particular form of this one made it stand out from all the rest. Most impressive was the blade itself, so transparent it almost didn’t exist at all, jet-black coloring wrapped around it like a frame. The blade was eighty centimeters long and probably eight millimeters thick. Its ephemeral beauty made it seem more like a piece of art than a weapon, but Haruyuki had seen in the earlier battle that this sword was a match for the Black King’s own Terminate Sword.

Fuko, meanwhile, seemed utterly unimpressed as she lifted her chin. “And what of it, your true self on the table here?”

Instantly, a giggle slipped out of Lead. Graph also shrugged as though he were smiling wryly before speaking again.

“It’s not like I’m trying to brag, okay? But um, at best, this is just an item with particular settings. The edge is made of this stuff graphene, though. And graphene is as thick as an atom of carbon…Meaning you can think of this sword as being ‘honed to single atom,’ the way you see in old manga and anime all the time.”

“Ohh…”

Cool! Haruyuki thought innocently, letting out an admiring hum.

Fuko simply urged him to continue with a nod.

“Okay, so this is totally different from that. Crow…and whoever’s on your shoulder there, you’ve gotten the lecture about the Incarnate system, yeah?”

Haruyuki glanced at his Incarnate technique instructor—or rather the teacher from hell that was Fuko—before hurriedly nodding. Metatron also flashed her angel halo once to indicate her agreement.

“Great. Put simply, the Incarnate System is a technique to interfere with the game using the power of one’s imagination. So long as your imagination’s strong enough, you can do things that are set as impossible in the system. And conversely, you can stop being able to do things that had previously been possible. The first one’s overwriting, and the second’s Zero Fill. Basically, you can do stuff like punch holes in indestructible terrain or make a totally close-range type use super-long-range techniques.”

“In other words, Graph, is this what you’re trying to say? That you used that sword and Incarnate techniques to break the Castle’s north gate?” Fuko asked suspiciously, eyebrow raised.

“No, no.” The dual swordmaster immediately shook his head. “Use Incarnate all you want, but that ain’t gonna happen. The ninefold gate that guards the Castle—the four gates in the four cardinal directions, the main doors of the main building, and then the four massive doors inside—are top-priority objects in the Unlimited Neutral Field. To smash ’em with Incarnate would be totally out of the question, even for Vanquish’s rage-gauge explosion status.”

Vanquish, aka the Blue King, Blue Knight, was said to be the most powerful close-range type in the Accelerated World. If he couldn’t do it, then there wasn’t a Burst Linker in the world who could destroy the four gates. In that case, however, what exactly did Graphite Edge do with his sword and Incarnate technique?

“Listen, Graph. I told you we don’t have a lot of time. Perhaps you could get to the point sooner rather than later.” Fuko was about three times as patient as the impatient alien Pard, and even she had a note of annoyance creeping into her voice as she admonished him.

But the swordsman remained irritatingly carefree. He lifted the sword once more and said, in fond reminiscence, “I taught Lota three types of Incarnate techniques: Vorpal Strike, Starburst Stream, and The Eclipse. They’re all showy, high-power, second-stage attacks. But like…with the Incarnate System, there’s something beyond that.”

“What?!” Haruyuki cried out once again. He stared intently at the swordmaster’s face mask as he asked, oh so timidly, “S-so that would be…third-stage Incarnate techniques then?”

“Mmm.” Casually assenting, Graph began to explain, moving Lux like a pointer. “I’ll go over the deets just in case. First-stage Incarnate techniques are just one type—range, movement, power, or defense expansion. Like, the basics. Second stage combines the different types, or else they’re adapted techniques that give results outside the standard framework. Good so far, yeah?”

Haruyuki bobbed his head up and down, Metatron made her halo flash, and even Fuko dipped her head slightly.

“Great. So, to sum it all up, second stage’s like way flashier than first. So then, third stage oughtta be all bang and pew-pew…That’s what you’d think, right, Crow?”

His name suddenly called, Haruyuki went ahead and nodded.

Graph leaned back, seemingly satisfied, and swung the sword from side to side. “Actually, truth is, it’s kinda the opposite.”

“Wh-whaaaaat?!” So then why did you push that on me before?! Haruyuki wanted to voice his complaint, but his interest in the topic won out. “Opposite…So then, third-stage techniques are smaller and less conspicuous than second…Is that it?”

“That is totally, exactly it. Still, that doesn’t mean they’re weak. Just the opposite, in fact…it’s like that thing. In manga and stuff, they’re always like ‘First you go big, and then you bring it home,’ y’know? In the third stage, you take the imagination you expanded waaaay out in the second stage and focus it on a single point, like, to an extreme. As for what happens when you do, well—” Graph had simply rambled on and was starting to puff his chest out for his next line when he was cut off by a voice from Haruyuki’s shoulder.

“Direct interference with the information on the Highest Level.”

The swordsman stopped as if stunned.

“That is what you are attempting to explain, is it not, Graph or whatever it was?”

“…Well, this is a shocker…” Perhaps he wasn’t just saying it and really was surprised; Graph simply focused on the 3-D icon for an intent moment, speechless. Finally, he nodded slowly, as if coming to an understanding. “I really feel like I met Shoulderina there somewhere a really long time ago. It’s not a Burst Linker sensory terminal, though, is it? An Enemy…and one of the highest class, the Legend class. So one of the Four Divines?”

“You do have fairly decent eyes, then. You are quite right.”

Realizing that now that it had come to this, and it would be impossible to fool Graph, Haruyuki let the small icon proudly name herself.

“I am the master of Silver Crow, the ruler of the Contrary Cathedral, one pillar of the Four Divines, the Archangel Metatron.”

After a few seconds of silence, Trilead was first to bow politely. “I apologize for the lateness of my greeting. I am called Trilead Tetroxide, and I am Graphite Edge’s student.”

“Mmm. I shall remember this,” Metatron replied placidly as she turned her icon toward Lead’s master and awaited his greeting as well.

But the twin blades swordsman simply stammered—“Ah, ah, ah”—and rather rudely pointed at the icon. “Okay, okay, I get it now. So that’s why I felt like I knew you somehow. Waaay back when, I fought you, just the one time,” Graph said, as though fondly reminiscing. “I worked so ridiculously hard to take you down, and then the Arc altar was empty, so it was pretty sad, though.”

Metatron made an angry “hmph” before rattling on smoothly in a very non-AI-like way. “You sound proud when you say you defeated me, but what you were in contest against was nothing more than my first form. And you also had the support of a Hell stage; if we fought outside the Castle, a mere warrior such as yourself would not last a hundred seconds against me. The same could be said for the warrior who came a little earlier than you and took The Luminary out from my palace.”

“R-right. Sorry for talking big,” Graph apologized, chastened, and cleared his throat. “Um, so…what was I talking about again…?”

“The third-stage Incarnate techniques, Master,” Trilead noted.

“Right, that.” He nodded solemnly. “Still, it’s just like Ms. Archangel there said, you can sum up the important part in a few words—‘Manipulating phenomenon from a higher dimension’…If you can completely master this stage, then distance becomes irrelevant.”

Instantly, something Metatron had said to him popped up in the back of Haruyuki’s mind:

Listen to me, little warrior. On the Highest Level, the concept of “distance” is meaningless. Thus, it is possible for us two to touch like this, despite the fact that we are far apart on the Mean Level; for us to have this overview of all three fields; and to even reference memories…

The concept of distance didn’t exist on the Highest Level. If it did…

“Uh, um, so then, that means…You can attack anything, and it doesn’t matter where it is or how far away?” Haruyuki asked timidly. “Unilaterally strike an opponent a few dozen kilometers away from you?”

“Taken to the extreme, that’s what it ends up being,” Graph agreed. “And it’s not just distance. Attack power, defensive abilities, compatibility—all parameters get tossed out the window. You could even do something like completely and utterly destroy the entire field with a toy gun. Anyone who totally conquers the third stage’d basically be a god of this world.”

“A-a god?”

“Yeah. It’d be like they got administrator privileges…”

Sensing pain in Graphite Edge’s voice as he spoke half to himself, Haruyuki blinked hard and stared. But no matter how he focused on the dual swordsman’s goggles, looking for the eye lenses hidden beneath, he couldn’t read what was going on inside the avatar’s head.

Haruyuki shifted his gaze to the longsword still gripped in Graph’s right hand and asked another question. “So then, is it…? You mastered this third-stage Incarnate technique and broke through the Castle’s north gate?”

“Hmm. The answer’s eighty percent no and twenty percent yes, I guess.” Casually carefree again, the swordmaster shrugged lightly. “If I had the power to do that, forget the gate; I’d have been able to take down the God at it, yeah? But there’s totally no way I could do that. I’m still real far from mastery. And you can’t escape the core of the Incarnate—its biggest principle, the fact that the imagination comes from your mind. You always end up bound by the frame of your own self.”

“And how, finally, does this relate to your earlier talk of graphene, pray tell?” Fuko spoke for the first time in a while.

“Ri-ri-right.” Graph moved his face mask up and down slightly. “Rekka’s always saying I’m more sword than person, and she’s not necessarily off base there. If G—if the Green King’s the Burst Linker in our world going the extra mile to protect people, then I’m the one who’s thought about nothing but cutting. So you know, I’m not too shabby with Incarnate. And I’ve focused and concentrated that to my limits, for this third-stage Incarnate technique.”

Graphite Edge dropped his gaze to the long sword clutched in one hand, and a hazy, bluish-purple overlay rose up from his body. The overlay was the extra noise from the excess of imagination flowing into the image-control circuits that connected a Burst Linker’s mind and their avatar; the system processed it as a light effect. The overlay enveloping Graph currently was subdued, but probably not because his Incarnate level was low. The opposite, in fact—because his imagination was so purely honed and refined, it caused virtually no noise.

Clink. The longsword Lux vanished with a crisp metallic sound.

No, not vanished…The sword had become as thin as humanly possible, sinking down to the atomic level. The hazy, shadowy blade would disappear and reappear when Haruyuki shifted his head to change the angle he viewed it at.

Now that the sword was indeed “honed to the thickness of a single atom,” Graph stood up from his seat, hand still on the grip. He looked back and then swiftly swung his sword away from the other Burst Linkers there.

There was no call of a technique name. Just the flashing movement of his right arm, three times. He then sheathed the sword and took a step back.

A second later, a triangle-size area of the stone floor sank down. Graph had severed the supposedly indestructible foundation of the Castle. The block continued to sink, gradually dropping out of the floor, and a few moments later, they heard the sound of two heavy objects colliding.

“So, basically, that’s the idea.” Graphite Edge turned around and spread his hands.

“Now listen, Graph.” Fuko was half stunned, half exasperated. “Before, you said—the ‘ninefold gates,’ was it? You said it was absolutely impossible to destroy the Castle’s four directional gates. This demonstration contradicts that. Can’t you simply use that technique to open a hole in the large door at the gates?”

“I tried that, at first. But the gates rejected even a third-level Incarnate technique. They probably use up a tremendous amount of resources to constantly update their data. But there is one gap we can exploit. Listen. Those gate doors themselves are indestructible, but the double doors and the others, they have gaps in their logical openings.”

Graph thrust his palms forward, as if making contact with each of the double doors. “The width of this gap is infinitely close to zero. But the thickness of the atomic blade I produce with my Incarnate technique is also infinitely close to zero. So there’s wiggle room for me to push the ‘logic’ of my Incarnate technique. Of course, it’s pointless if my blade makes it through when I can’t…But with the four directional gates, it’s enough if just my blade can pass through. Because—”

“You can destroy the seal plate from outside the gate!” Haruyuki shouted.

“Exactly.” Graph seemed to be grinning as he opened his hands. “I said this before, but in short, third-stage Incarnate is about pushing through to the result. The argument that you believe is absolute—I call it the absolute theory. And with it, you can overwrite things whether anyone likes it or not. There’s no flashy lights or big explosions; you simply get the results.

“The absolute theory behind Elucidator is that this blade is thin and sharp to the extreme, so it can cut anything. It doesn’t work on the ninefold gates themselves, but I managed to slip the blade through the gap and cut the seal. Wasn’t as easy as I make it sound, though.”

That was obviously true. If you were going to try to pass a blade with zero thickness through a gap with zero width, then the tolerance for error would also be zero. And on top of that, you would have to slice through the solid seal plate with one hit, which would require swinging with full force at top speed.

“So you made it work with one hit?” Haruyuki asked, half disbelieving.

“No way.” Graph wove his hands back and forth to indicate a negative. “I failed so many times, got massacred by Genbu so many times…But in the Unlimited Neutral Field, you’ve got time if nothing else, and I had a bunch of extra points. I focused on the challenge like I was in training, and right around the time I forgot how many times I’d died, I finally made it work.”

“Graph, if you had enough points that you could die that many times, then why didn’t you try to flee to the other side of the bridge instead of inside the gate?” Fuko asked, exasperated.

“Nah, there was no way.” He shook his head once again. “I had about three seconds leeway from the time I regenerated on the bridge until Genbu popped up to attack me. But about fifty percent of the time, that turtle comes barreling at you with the gravity attack on its first go. No matter how far you get before that, you just get sucked back and have to start all over again. Swinging my sword at the gate in front of me was way more constructive. And…” He looked down at Lead, sitting properly on the chair to his left. “And because I made it inside the Castle, I managed to get my second student. All my hard work wasn’t for nothing.”

Right. Hearing this, Haruyuki belatedly remembered the sword wielder before him was Kuroyukihime’s teacher, and Kuroyukihime was Haruyuki’s own swordmaster. Which meant Haruyuki was Graph’s grand-student, and Graph would be Haruyuki’s grand master. So then maybe he shouldn’t be calling him Graph like he had been, but master, following Trilead’s lead. Or maybe he should pick something else, like elder.

As Haruyuki sat sunk in thought, his other master—his Incarnate teacher, Sky Raker, let out a soft sigh. “My goodness, the first story is finally finished, hmm? That you would spend twenty minutes telling a tale that could’ve been finished with ‘I broke through with an Incarnate technique.’”

“N-now you’re just being mean, Rekka. I was doing my best to explain it, so it was easy for the young people and Ms. Archangel to understand.”

“In my case, I comprehended the issue with simply ‘I interfered from the Highest Level.’” Metatron’s words were no less thorny and merciless than Fuko’s, and Graph’s shoulders slumped. Looking at this, Fuko smiled. “That’s the first time you and I have agreed, Meta.”

“Who are you calling ‘Meta’?!” Metatron fumed, and Haruyuki hurried to intercede.

“But, Metatron, you did say, right? That you can’t interfere with comrades or enemies on the Highest Level. You can only recognize and be aware. I think it’s the same with terrain, but…”

“It is admirable that you recollect my words, but if you are going to do so, then do so correctly. At that time, I said that you could not interfere. With your abilities in that moment in time, observing the Highest Level was your limit.” Metatron’s voice in cool declaration was just the slightest bit softer, something that Haruyuki alone likely realized. “But after that, you called to me through the Highest Level and reestablished the link that was nearly severed. If you do not call that interference, then what do you call it?”

“Oh…R-right…” Haruyuki remembered how, guided by a mysterious voice that gave its name as “somethingterasu,” he had just barely managed to recover Metatron’s core when she was on the verge of extinction, and he suddenly wanted to hug the icon on his shoulder. But if he did something like that, he had no doubt the surprisingly shy Archangel would be furious, so he resisted the urge and finished with a nod. “I had to concentrate so hard just to get my voice to finally reach you. I’m totally incapable of destroying something in the Highest Level.”

“Of course, servant.”

“Could I have a minute, Tron?” Fuko interjected again.

“Who are you calling ‘Tron’?!”

“This Highest Level, if it’s just looking, can anyone look, I wonder? For instance, myself?”

“…Mm…” Grunting with displeasure, Metatron moved from Haruyuki’s right shoulder to his left and glanced at Fuko’s avatar. “It is absolutely not the case that anyone can, but it would likely not be impossible for you. However. The reason Silver Crow was previously able to reach the Highest Level was because the calculation speed of his mental circuits increased dramatically during the battle with the pseudo-Being you call Mark II. To re-create that state in normal times would require long hours of concentration.”

Haruyuki listened attentively to Metatron’s slightly aggressive explanation, but fortunately, Fuko nodded, with no display of her own usual challenging spirit.

“I see. Well then, we will leave that for the next opportunity. The reason we have come to the Castle today is to obtain information on the seventh of the Arcs, The Fluctuating Light, and convey that to Black Lotus.”

“Hmm. I am also greatly interested in this.”

When Metatron agreed with her, Fuko turned back to Graphite Edge. “So then, shall we get on with the main discussion? Graph, given that you charged into this Castle three years ago, there’s no way that you didn’t investigate it. Tell me. What on earth is the final Arc?”

“H-hang on a sec.” The dual swordmaster raised both his hands in protest.

“What, Graph?” Fuko’s eye lenses flashed sharply. “Is there something you would rather not have known?”

“No, it’s nothing like that.” Eyes darting about, Graph looked as though he were turning something over in his mind, but he soon let out a sigh. “Fine, fine. I’ll tell you whatever I know. About TFL and the secrets of the Accelerated World…But if I’m going to tell you all that, there’s a more suitable place to do it.”

“Where?” Fuko asked suspiciously, and the graphite swordsman snapped an index finger out, straight downward.

“The deepest part of this Castle main building, of course—on the other side of the last gate.”